


every step away from me

by Cerberusia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: "As brothers, you have to look after each other," Mother says. "And by that, I mean that you have to look after Regulus."





	every step away from me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makiyakinabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/gifts).



> ...It would probably _help_ had I checked this over before the collection opened and discovered that I hadn't replaced it with the rather longer final draft. Once More, With Feeling?

"As brothers, you have to look after each other," Mother says. "And by that, I mean that you have to look after Regulus."

Sirius scowls. He _already_ looks after Regulus, but Mother telling him to do something just makes him not want to. He feels like all the portraits are looking down on him disapprovingly from the parlour walls.

"I will, Mummy." It feels rebellious to call her _Mother_ in his head even though she insists on being called _Mummy_ , so he always does it. He wishes she'd draw back the curtains. It's always so stuffy in the parlour. "But what about next year, when I'm at Hogwarts?" He's not trying to get out of looking after Regulus - well, maybe a bit; he is _awfully_ clingy - but he likes the idea that he's found a flaw in her instructions.

"You can look after him then by paving the way for him," Mother announces. She has an answer for everything, as usual. "You should make friends with the other _nice_ Slytherins," and by _nice_ she means well-connected, "so that he has an easier time of things when he arrives." She lowers her voice a little: "He's not _like_ you, Sirius."

No, Sirius has to admit, Regulus _isn't_ like him.

"Look what Auntie Lucretia got me!" Regulus races up to him when he finally gets out of the parlour and away from the audience with Mother. He's holding a little figurine - a toy. It's of a woman in a neck ruff and robes of black and purple velvet.

"It's Elizabeth Burke!" Regulus announces proudly. The toy puffs out her ample chest and strides about proudly on his outstretched palm. "She was Headmistress of Hogwarts four hundred years ago. She was one of _our sort_."

"What, soulmates with her brother?" Sirius leers. The figurine looks scandalised.

"No!" Regulus scowls at him. "Her mother was a Black, and she believed very strongly in _Toujours pur_."

"Must have been rough for all the Muggleborns."

"Oh, probably." Regulus doesn't seem unduly upset by this prospect. "D'you want to take Betelgeuse for a walk? Only it's _awf'ly_ nice outside."

Sirius would do anything to get out of this house and away from the exceptionally grotesque stuffed house-elf head mounted just behind the parlour door, so he agrees.

Betelgeuse is a dog so extraordinarily unsuited to them as a family that Sirius sometimes thinks that Abraxas Malfoy gave her to them as some kind of jibe. Deerhounds are simply not suited to London, acre-sized garden or not. But Sirius and Regulus have spent many happy hours throwing sticks for her to fetch or directing little magically engineered rabbit-shaped toys for her to chase with her great galloping gait.

Frankly, Sirius thinks as he opens the door and breathes the fresh air of central London, Betelgeuse is probably his favourite member of the family. He loves her even more than Uncle Alphard. He might not love her more than Regulus, but that's different.

Regulus isn't an _optional_ love. Their fate was set as soon as Sirius, in his father's arms, was lowered into Regulus' cradle to meet his new baby brother - and his finger came away with a little black mark where it had touched his brother's newborn cheek, now freshly dotted. On Sirius it looks like an ink stain, and on Regulus like a mole; but close examination would reveal their magical signatures woven into each other's flesh.

It might be different if Sirius remembered any of this. He knows what it's supposed to feel like when you meet your soulmate for the first time - the spark, the warmth, the feeling of absolute _rightness_ and safety - and maybe he really did feel like that at that moment when he was a little over a year old. But he doesn't remember it _now_. How can he possibly be _of one soul_ with Regulus, of all people?

Regulus has taken out that horrid figurine of Elizabeth Burke and is happily playing with it while Betelgeuse trots along at his heel, anticipating the joys of the park. Sirius _hates_ Auntie Lucretia. Sometimes, alone at night when Regulus hasn't crept into his bed, he thinks he might hate Regulus a bit too.

They exercise Betelgeuse for an hour, throwing sticks and letting her bound after them until she's nearly out of sight, her great long, powerful legs blurring with her speed. Regulus idly fiddles with his new toy in one hand, and Sirius vindictively thinks that if he doesn't put it away right now then Betelgeuse will _definitely_ become his favourite member of this awful family.

That night, Regulus is tracing the edges of Sirius' hipbones over and over as they lie together on Sirius' four-poster bed. He's said before that he likes the contrast between soft skin and hard bone, the little hollow beneath. He's ten now; it's not surprising that he's starting to be curious about his brother's body. Sirius clears his throat.

"When I go up to Hogwarts, it'll all have to be different, you know." Regulus looks up, big black eyes alert in his pale face.

"Why?" Sirius shifts uncomfortably and Regulus holds his hip to keep him where he is, the two of them tucked up together.

"I mean...I don't think we should spread it about."

"There's nothing _wrong_ with it," Regulus insists stubbornly. His fingernails are digging into Sirius' hip.

"I know," says Sirius, even though he's not convinced, "but it's not _usual_ , and I don't want people to tease you." Regulus _hates_ being teased or mocked. No-one likes being laughed at, of course, but it drives Regulus absolutely _wild_. And Sirius knows the potential for embarrassment will put him off.

Sure enough, Regulus flushes blotchily at the thought, and agrees. His fingernails release the tender skin of Sirius' hip, and he slowly strokes the red crescent marks left behind.

"But you'll still treat me the same, won't you?" he asks piteously. "You won't be horrible to me, just so no-one suspects?"

"Of course not," Sirius promises, and hopes he's not lying.

So he goes up to Hogwarts in September and doesn't admit that he's already met his soulmate. It's easy: nobody asks. It wouldn't be surprising if somebody did - he knows other people who've met theirs early, before Hogwarts age - but nobody does, so he doesn't have to lie. He prefers not lying. Regulus lies almost compulsively, and it drives him mad.

"I'm going to be in Gryffindor," announces James Potter, sitting opposite him on the Hogwarts Express. They're third cousins, but they've not met before: Fleamont and Euphemia don't mingle with _their sort_ , despite being Purebloods. Talking with him feels thrillingly naughty, though all James had done was to ask if he could share Sirius' compartment. He's _much_ better company that Rodolphus Lestrange, whom Sirius has managed to leave to Bellatrix and Narcissa's untender mercies.

"Slytherin, I 'spose." Sirius isn't too keen. Apparently the Common Room is underground and dark and damp, and it just sounds like an extension of home but with even less privacy. Apparently Gryffindor is in a tower and you can see the Quidditch pitch from some of the dormitory windows, which sounds much better than the Slytherins' occasional view of the Giant Squid.

James wrinkles his nose.

"No, mate, you don't want to be in Slytherin," he says with the boundless confidence of an unchallenged Pureblood scion. "Come be in Gryffindor, with me!"

"I don't think you get a choice," says Sirius, but he cherishes the possibility anyway, all the way to putting on the Hat. Father and all his aunts and uncles say that Gryffindor's where they put all the stupid people who spend all their time playing up and being rude (as opposed to Hufflepuff, where they put all the stupid people who would never do anything of the sort and also never amount to anything). It sounds a lot more fun than Slytherin, and a lot _nicer_.

The Hat, it seems, is listening - or perhaps it sees something in him already, the defect in his character that Mother is always complaining about, the one that makes him like Andromeda and Uncle Alphard, because he quickly ends up with bigger fish to fry than hypothetically being asked about his soulmate.

He isn't disowned, but it's a near thing. His mother's Howlers are outright pyrotechnic. He laughs and cracks jokes with the rest of the Gryffindor table when they're done and lets the hot stomach-cramping fear subside. Once, he catches Andromeda's eye at the Slytherin table and she gives him a secret smile.

Worse is Regulus' letter.

 _What if I end up in Gryffindor too?_ he writes in big, childish scrawl. No chance of that, Sirius thinks. _Or what if I'm in Slytherin so we're in different houses? Why didn't you tell them there has been a mistake?_

Because, Sirius doesn't write, there was no mistake at all. He writes a deliberately bland letter to his parents, then a slightly more personal, conciliatory one to Regulus, reassuring him that it won't matter if they're in different houses. Only slightly, though: there's no guaranteeing Mother won't read it.

He doesn't miss having Regulus sneak into his bed: he always nicked the covers. But the four-poster in the first-years' dormitory does feel strangely large, and he's glad for the hot water bottles the house elves put between their sheets through the winter.

 _I dream of you all the time,_ writes Regulus not long into the Michaelmas term, when all the red and orange leaves are falling from the trees to form great piles that the sixth-years enchant to trap passing firsties. _Do you dream of me?_

Sirius does. There's no narrative, nothing he can grasp on waking; but in his dreams, there's always someone with him. He even dreams when he's awake, feels the brush of a phantom hand down his arm in Potions and nearly drops the whole bundle of mugwort he's supposed to be chopping straight into his cauldron. He knows it's not a ghost. He knows that touch, the size of the that hand, the imprint of those fingertips. In some dreams there's a whole body, and he knows that too.

 _Sometimes,_ he writes back, and is vague about the specifics. There are some things Regulus isn't ready for.

Shortly before Christmas, he gets a letter with more smudges than usual.

 _I miss you so much & have to see you & I need you,_ reads one line. _I have a special present, will show you tonight,_ reads another.

Even knowing there's a lock on outside Floo calls within Hogwarts, Sirius half-expects Regulus' head to pop up in the common room fireplace while he's doing his Charms prep. Instead, there's a strange ticklish sensation on his forearm, like the brush of a feather or finger.

For a moment, Sirius thinks James has put some sort of horrid creepy-crawly on him in revenge for teasing him about how Lily Evans won't give him the time of day - or even shake his hand to confirm whether they are, as he insists, soulmates. Then he realises that he knows that touch. Regulus has always loved to trace things on his skin and make him guess what they are - usually without much success, because Regulus' artistic skills leave something to be desired.

He excuses himself to the gents' loos, and pulls back the sleeve of his robe. There, on his pale arm, is a green curlicue letter: _R_.

There's more tickling on his thigh. He hitches up his robes to find another _R_ appearing in glimmering emerald, bigger and more ornate than the first.

After that, they appear all over, like moles. Sirius is thankful for the way his school robes button all the way to the neck. There's no set pattern: he might be in a lesson or on a broom or eating dinner or just chatting, and some part of his body will start to tingle with the sensation of Regulus writing his initial in his best copperplate.

Regulus' last letter before Christmas: _Whenever I write an **R** , it means I love you & you're mine._ For the last week of the Michaelmas term, Sirius goes all round Hogwarts with who he belongs to written on his skin. He can't tell if he likes it or not. A couple of times he catches himself staring at his soulmark, the inky splotch on his finger. Such a small thing.

When he steps through the door of 13 Grimmauld Place, it's like nothing's changed. Kreacher takes his suitcases, Mimi takes his cloak, and Regulus clings tightly to his arm. All around them at the station, people had been hugging and kissing each other after their first term at Hogwarts - _How common,_ Mother had said - and Regulus had just looked at him with burning eyes and not touched him until Father told them to hold hands for the Side-Along Apparition. Regulus had taken his arm like a lady would a gentleman's instead, and he still hasn't let go.

Sirius manages to break free of the hold by excusing himself to the toilet, but when he goes into his bedroom - everything is, naturally, already unpacked - Regulus is lying in wait.

"Show me," he insists. Sirius, about to take off his school robes, hesitates inexplicably.

"Regulus-" Regulus seizes his wrist. His grip is surprisingly strong. He's growing up - literally, they're eye-to-eye.

" _Show_ me, please!" He pulls back Sirius' sleeve, but his forearm is bare and Sirius has to help him unbutton his robes and pull them over his head so he can find the mark he's left on Sirius' shoulder, the great looping green _R_.

"I wrote it on myself, see?" Regulus explains, tracing the letter. "It sinks into my skin, and it appears on you." He looks up through his lashes. "It only works for _us_." Soulmates, he means. "Do you like it?"

Sirius clears his throat. He can't look Regulus in the eye, so he looks at the little irregular splotch of his soulmark instead, just underneath his eye. What was I trying to do, he wonders, when I did that? What was I trying to touch?

"Y-yeah. Yeah, I like it." It's not the uncomplicated joy of sausages and mash for dinner, but knowing that Regulus was at home thinking of him, longing for him, makes him feel warm in his chest and stomach and hot in his head. Regulus is _his_ brother, _his_ soulmate. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. They might even manage one whole week before getting on each other's nerves.

Very shyly, Regulus leans foward and presses his mouth to his initial. He's kissing it, Sirius realises. He's kissing my shoulder. He's very aware that he's down to his underpants and socks.

When Sirius doesn't pull away, Regulus clutches for his hand - cool in Regulus' burning fingers - and brings it up. Sirius doesn't realise that he means to kiss the soulmark until he's doing it, sucking so gently with his lips at the tiny black mark on his finger.

Something happens inside him, something big, something _magical_. Regulus doesn't let go as Sirius lurches forward, Regulus' face coming closer and closer, until he can press a kiss against the little mole on Regulus' cheek with its tiny lines of an infant's fingerprint.

It's no different from the rest of Regulus' skin, but Sirius knows he's touching it because Regulus' whole body jerks and he feels it rattle through him, the hot clenching force holding both their shuddering bodies right there in his bedroom, the feeling of _union_.

They collapse onto the bed, still holding hands. Sirius' legs are wobbly and Regulus is panting. He looks shocked. He might not even know what just happened: the first time, Sirius had thought he'd wet himself.

"I didn't know that would happen," Regulus whispers.

"Me neither," Sirius mumbles. He feels kind of sticky, but mainly warm and content. He just wants to stay like this, wrapped up with his brother's body. He's bony and as hot as a furnace, and for once Sirius hopes he'll come and sneak into Sirius' bed tonight.

Regulus stirs enough to give him a kiss on the mouth; just a little one, like they did all the time when they were small. Sirius wouldn't do it when people were watching, but Regulus would bounce and pucker up and beg until Sirius pulled him into the cloakroom or behind the greenhouse and gave him the longed-for kiss.

Will they still do that at Hogwarts? Will Regulus catch his eye across the Great Hall and they'll slip off to the lake or the boys' toilets? Sirius tries to imagine it, and fails.

"It'll be alright, you know," Regulus murmurs with half-closed eyes. "At Hogwarts. It won't matter that we're in different houses. It doesn't _matter_ that you're in Gryffindor." Sirius wonders what has been said over the dinner table in his absence. "I keep telling Mummy, you're still _one of us_."

It does matter, of course, that he's in Gryffindor. It's changed everything. Sirius thinks of James and the rest of the Gryffindor table and the way they'd all accepted him so casually; of the house elf heads and the permanent cold in this house that goes beyond weather or season; and something in his heart closes up. He can't tell Regulus, but he's not been _one of us_ for a long time.


End file.
